Sagara in the City
by SwordSkill
Summary: AU one-shot. Sano is a journalist in one of America's big cities. Megumi is a surgeon who's new in town. Sparks fly, and Sagara's life as he knew it will never be the same.


** A/N:** Took a little break from the other S/M fic I was working on. I love messing around with Sano's head. ^^ He's the easiest person to understand in the emotion smorgasbord cast of RK, in my opinion. ^^ Erm, I'm not a journalist so I may have some mistakes regarding the journalist's world. Thousand pardons if there are too many.

**Sagara in the City**  


  


The name is Sagara. I live in the city. And I hated it.

I live in a rathole for an apartment room. I eat TV dinners everyday of my life. My clothes are never clean. 

I work for the newspaper. _The Daily Bugle_. That's right, say the ten-letter word that makes me more opinionated than the average person: J-O-U-R-N-A-L-I-S-T.

I've got the gear. I've got the the eyeglasses, the week's growth on my chin, the messy tie, the unkempt hair, the spilled coffee spot on my white shirt. I've got the press sticker on my car, the backstage passes, the champagne drank with silverscreen celebrities. Chicks dig me when I have my notebook in one hand and a pen on the other. They can't resist someone who can make them popular. 

I've got a power with words. Sheer genius how I could brainwash you with them. I could snuff out a guy's ego, smooth-talk myself from the guys from the IRS, shake hands with the President, confuse the FBI...heck, I could even create World War III with 'em!

The best part of it is that I get money out of words. And that's because I'm the god of words.

Well, I was. Till I met this lady. The speed of how she could receive my pointed remarks, warp it, and zap it back with the speed of a bullet sent my Mt. Olympus crashing down and made Zeus dwell upon the mere mortals.

Her first name was Megumi. Takani was her last. She was a heart surgeon who graduated from Harvard. She was new in town, and I had to interview her in the city hospital. I wasn't very happy with my assignment; I probably had to deal with a crabby old maid who'd look good if she only wore something that covered her entire body.

Famous last words.

Dr. Takani was a drop-dead, gorgeous beauty. My socks would've rolled up and down if they hadn't been in the laundry. Tall, black hair, white skin, cherry lips, fiery eyes, stethoscope around her neck (man, I wish _I_ was the one around her neck!), clipboard on her hands, doctor's gown...she would've looked great even in a straitjacket! Foxy woman for sure. She was ravishingly beautiful.

She looked like the no-nonsense type, but did that matter? Of course not. With me and my words, who could resist?

So I took out my book and my pen, adjusted my glasses, put on my best journalistic air, and approached her. She took one look at me and said she was not going to cooperate for an interview if I didn't shave the fur on my chin.

When I heard those words, and I knew I liked her.

Couldn't show it, though. Besides the fact that I was here strictly on business, I didn't like the idea that anyone had the gall to talk to me like that. Especially if that someone is a woman.

So I told her that I shaved for no one, and if she didn't want to be interviewed, she wasn't going to get one.

She arched her eyebrows. Then she said she wasn't the one who needed it anyway.

I went out of the hospital to buy a pair of razor blades and some cream.

I came back only to have her adjust my tie, comb my hair, give me a lecture on taking off stains, and recommend me to the nearest optical shop to have my taped-up eyeglasses fixed. Then she sat down on her desk and told me to be quick.

I sure as heck wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of that.

First question: what was your latest line of work before you became a doctor?

She told me to skip that and move on to the "more intellectual questions worthy of the human brain."

I nearly broke my pen.

I stood up and shouted that I was merely doing my job, and it was not in her jurisdiction to judge my questions as being appropriate for humans or amoeba.

She ordered Mr. Sagara to sit down, keep quiet, and try to be as civil as possible, or else she'd call security.

I sat down.

Question after question, she floored me. Define this, define that, she asked. I defined, but they were never good enough for her. Explain why this question is necessary, she stated, and I would explain, but she would say that my explanations just weren't plausible enough.

An hour and a half trying to get some answers from the doctor, and all I had in my pad of paper was her name. I was beginning to like her less and less.

When she asked what was the point of wasting ninety minutes of her time with a brainless rooster such as I, I lost it. I got up and asked in a yell, Who was the brainless one: the rooster or the fox who followed the rooster? Then I stomped out, fuming. Who cared if editor Big Bob fired me? He couldn't be any worse than the fox doctor.

When I got home, I began thinking that maybe I had been too harsh on her. After all, she was new in the city and she was probably still pretty uptight from moving. So I decided to call her number.

She answered. I asked her if she would like a cup of coffee with me. She said that her office had its own coffee machine. Then she hung up.

The words that came out from my lips had Mrs. Pickle rush up and bark that if I didn't shut up, she'd evict me.

I told her to put a sock in it. The next thing I knew, I was standing outside the apartment with my suitcase. Mrs. Pickle never had much logic anyway. So much for reasoning with her.

I whistled a cab to take me to the nearest, low-paying motel there was in the city. Thus I got stuck in an even dingier rathole than my former rathole.

Fortunately, Big Bob didn't kick me out as soon as I feared. He gave me another chance; I _was_ one of his prized journalists after all. My next assignment was to interview a former mafia member. That went pretty smoothly. And I still had my job.

After payday, I wheedled Mrs. Pickle to take me back. As I had foreseen, she couldn't say no to the fresh green notes that I leafed under her nose. After moving back to my old rathole, I decided to write a letter to Ms. Megumi Takani to celebrate. I gloated on how she thought she was going to ruin my life after her "interview" but that she didn't succeed. I sent the letter to her secretary, feeling insufferably pleased of myself.

The next day, I received a letter from her. She was still as fiery as ever as she disproved all my "statements" and branded them as "logical fallacies." She also labeled me as an empty-headed rooster bachelor "whose cause for his unmarried life is quite plainly seen."

Smoke came out of my ears as I grabbed a sheet of letter-paper and got my pen. I had never been so motivated to write.

The next day, her reply was on my doorstep.

It went like that for two years. Everday we were quarreling with each other about the pettiest things, hurling insults to one another, and learning a little more of the other. I learned that she came from Japan, before she moved to the States to get a better education. She learned that I also came from Japan, whose parents had moved to the States to get a better chance in life.

I also learned why she didn't like my question of what her latest line of work had been. She used to be involved in illegal drug-trafficking years ago, but that was because she was forced to. She wasn't convicted because they found out just in time that she didn't do the trafficking by her own free will. I believed her, and that was strange because I'm a journalist, and I'm supposed to look at both sides of the coin. I was supposed to concentrate on what cannot lie, things like cold, hard evidence. But still, I believed her. I just knew that she would never commit a crime like that by her own free will.

The city was big and full of people, so during those two years, I only met her twice. Once was in a coffee shop. She was on her way out and I was on my way in. I commented that I thought she had a coffee maker in her office, so what was she doing here? She said rather frostily that I should stop jumping to conclusions; she had gone in to buy some strawberry shortcake and if I would please move out of the way because she was in a hurry.

The second time was in the laundrymat. I offered to pay for her laundry, gentleman that I was, but again, she stumped me on this one. I should have known that she was a feminist.

And in those two times, she was still as captivating as the first time I met her. The way her eyes flashed and her face grew a little pink when she argued with me just blew me away. Gets me everytime.

Then it finally came. Someone had hinted to Big Bob that one of the top heart surgeons in the city was one of the ringleaders in a drug-trafficking case years ago. She escaped from jail and came here under the name of Megumi Takani.

Big Bob couldn't resist a juicy one. He was going to splash an exposé on Megumi on the front pages....for a week! He sent all of us on the witch hunt for her. Nothing was to be passed by.

That night, Megumi called me on the phone. I told her that I certainly wasn't going to pin her down for the press or go noseying for evidence against her, but I couldn't stop the others from doing it. I had no choice; this was my job.

She asked me if I still believed her. I said yes, then she asked me why I couldn't do anything about it. I knew the truth, so why couldn't I make a stand for it? I answered, what was the use of making a stand when no one was going to stand with you? People had a tendency to believe in the worst of other people. I was only one against the entire city. I couldn't do _anything_.

Had I tried yet? she asked. Had this tori-atama tried summoning some courage to at least tell even a handful of people?

It was late at night and I had a terrible day dealing with my colleagues, and now this. I lost my patience. I shouted that she hadn't given me evidence or anything tangible to prove her side of the story. How could she expect me to convince people by hearsay? For all I knew, she could've been lying to me.

There was a dreadful pause in the phone, then she hung up.

I felt horrible later on, so I rang her up. She didn't answer the phone. I wrote her a letter. She never wrote back. I called her again the next day, but someone else picked up the phone and said that Ms. Megumi Takani had moved out of the city. She didn't leave an address.

Two days later, I lost my job. The next day, I got into a fight with a guy that resulted in me breaking my arm. A year flew by and a lot of things happened. I couldn't pay enough money for the rent. I had to move out to the worst rathole I had ever lived in. Since Megumi left, I lost my power of words. I couldn't concentrate in finding myself a job because she was always in my head. I survived by doing odd jobs here and there. I was pretty much one of the unemployed in the city.

But everyday in that year, I had always walked to Mrs. Pickle's apartment to see if the beautiful doctor had written me anything or if she had called me. There was never anything for me. I always went to sleep in my cot in a drunken state, wanting to drown myself.

I guess I missed her.

One day, I bumped into one of her friends in the hospital. After dragging her into a dark alley, I had managed to squeeze out some information about Megumi. After our last phone call, she told her that she never wanted to see me, hear from me, or read from me again. She moved out of the States and back to Japan.

I also managed to get Megumi's phone number after shaking the girl a couple of times.

It was raining that night.

I swished out down the streets with my coat and took cover in the phone booth. I punched her number. The phone rang.

She picked it up. _Moshi moshi_, she said, and after hearing her voice speak in our native language, I knew what I had to do.

Before she could hang up, I told her that I just wanted to tell her something: that the exposé never was published. After I learned that she had left, I broke into our press office that night, when everyone else had gone home. I found out through Big Bob's files who the hinter was. He sure had done his job well. He had left document after document of incriminating "evidence" against Megumi, and my colleagues had collected them like peanuts. I did the most sensible thing to do. I took all those documents and ran them into the paper shredder.

The next day, I confessed to Big Bob that I did it. I had to pay a huge fine, and then he fired me. Then I stormed into the hinter's house and beat him up within an inch of his life. Turns out that _he_ used to be one of the ringleaders of that drug-trafficking case and he wanted his revenge at Megumi for finally telling them on the police. I broke my arm beating him up to confess to my tape recorder, though, but it was worth it to see Big Bob's face when I threw the tape at him. He listened to it then told me to get out of his face. The exposé never came through. For one straight year, even until now, I was out of a job and out of money and lived in the worst rathole ever, but at least this tori-atama had summoned his courage.

Megumi didn't say a word while I told her this. She didn't say a word either when I finished. But I knew she was still listening, so I decided to pounce on the opportunity.

My power with words never worked its magic when I was talking to her, so I knew that the best way to put a thought across was to put it in its simplest and most straightforward form possible.

I told Megumi that I loved her and I wanted to marry her.

Then I waited. She didn't answer.

I waited for what seemed to be the longest two minutes I had ever endured. Still, no answer.

A smart man knows when he's beaten. I pulled the receiver away from my ear and thought how foolish I was to think that she would even consider marrying a penniless man like me.

Then I heard her answer come out from the receiver when I was just about to hang up. It was the softest but the best "Hai" I had ever heard in my life.

I put the receiver back on my ear and told her to please repeat what she had just said.

She was laughing and crying at the same time. She told me that she had loved me since the day I walked out of her office yelling about the fox who followed the rooster. And after she moved back to Japan, she knew she made a huge mistake. She had left someone here that she would never stop thinking about. She wasn't expecting me to do anything about that exposé, but now that I did, well, if I hadn't asked her tonight to marry me, she would have asked _me_ to marry her. 

I couldn't answer. I was choking down a lump on my throat and trying not to sniff out loud. Then she told me to quit crying (I was a man, for pity's sake, she said) and to pick her up in the airport soon.

Two days later, I met her in the airport. She was still as beautiful as ever, my Megitsune-sensei was. After taking her hand luggage from her and tossing it away, I swept the beauty into my arms and kissed her.

The name is Sagara. I have a beautiful and intelligent wife. We live in the city. And we love it.

**end**


End file.
